io2 THE UNIVERSITIES
professor: (i) the professor conforming to one's views is
the "famous scientist" who is quoted as witness in one's
own cause on every occasion; (2) the professor holding a
different view is an "unworldly scholar" with no idea of
practical matters.
A professor studying the entire subject of co-opera-
tion, which means dealing with agricultural and industrial
societies, traders' as well as consumers* societies, will
find it difficult to satisfy all his students and readers.
The consumers' co-operatives want him to condemn the
traders, the traders will not hear a mention of consumers;
the farmers demand protective tariffs, while the con-
sumers are free traders. How is the unfortunate scholar
to please them all ? Will there not -come a day when the
co-operatives begin to see that science cannot be expected
to play the part of referee?
Conditions are worse even where there are differences
of opinion and organisation between societies of one type.
If a doctoral thesis deals with one school of thought, the
writer is suspected of not doing justice to the others.
Even the foundation of the Institute, exclusively devoted
to the scientific aspects of the co-operative movement,
has led to misunderstandings, since it naturally excluded
and thereby supposedly slighted practical men. But
perhaps it will be the Institute which will finally succeed
in showing the practical world that scientific objectivity
does not mean hostility—that, on the contrary, theory
and practice must co-operate, though both must be both
independent and magnanimous in their mutual relations.
The tasks before co-operative research 'are much
greater than is usually supposed. It is necessary to enter
upon a detailed investigation of the co-operatives. There
are already a number of rather inadequate statistics, but
what, for instance, do we know of the official of the
co-operative societies? What is the contribution of
the co-operatives to production and distribution in the
various countries? How are the co-operatives in different
countries related to one another, to national economy,
to the various trades and professions? On these and